


Una Palabra a la Vez (One Word at a Time)

by jujitsuelf



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Gen, Post-World War Two, set around 1948/49
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 15:32:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1823455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujitsuelf/pseuds/jujitsuelf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soft notes from deftly-plucked guitar strings shimmered out into the balmy Los Angeles night. Jake Jensen set his book down on the table beside his couch and lit a cigarette instead...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Una Palabra a la Vez (One Word at a Time)

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in the tags this is set in around 1948/49. It's my (very loose) nod to film noir, so I hope I got the atmosphere right.
> 
> I watched a youtube video of a guy named Milos Karadaglic playing Quizas, Quizas, Quizas on classical guitar and the slow, incredibly sultry tone of it really struck me. He's amazing and well worth listening to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULJy6yHadUg
> 
> Thanks to 3White_Mage3 and Saral_Hylor for the read-throughs 
> 
> ***  
> Disclaimer – All publicly recognizable characters, settings etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended  
> ***

Soft notes from deftly-plucked guitar strings shimmered out into the balmy Los Angeles night. Jake Jensen set his book down on the table beside his couch and lit a cigarette instead.

Below his window, a car horn honked and someone yelled abuse at the driver. Static-ridden music from Mrs. Henderson’s radio crackled in the apartment above him, Frank Sinatra’s voice fading in and out. A woman laughed somewhere down on the street and a man’s rumbling chuckle joined in. But the gentle, careful guitar notes cut through all of it.

It’d become something of a ritual in the past few weeks. At around eight in the evening, after he’d eaten what passed for dinner and cleared away his plates, Jensen would sit down and try to read. Fifteen minutes later, the guitar would begin quietly singing in the apartment next door. There were never any vocals to accompany the music but honestly, words would be superfluous.

Jensen had seen the guy who lived next door to him a couple of times. He was dark, didn’t say much and wore a battered hat which would look more at home on a cowboy in Montana than in a low-brow Los Angeles apartment block. The guy seemed to be fond of that hat, it was the only one he ever wore. Then again, Jensen was hardly one to comment. He always wore the same cheap fedora, purely because it was the only one he owned. Struggling writers didn’t have much cash to splash on fancy wardrobes. Struggling writers who’d come back from the war with bucketloads of problems and never slept without nightmares, had even less.

So far Jake hadn’t mentioned the music to the guy next door. A quick nod in the hallway was as far as their interaction had gone.

A part of him wanted to confess that listening to those quiet, confident notes had become the best part of any of his days but of course he couldn’t just blurt that out without even knowing the man’s name. Maybe once they’d progressed beyond polite greetings he could broach the subject. Or maybe not, he didn’t have the best track record of having conversations without sticking his foot in his mouth. Perhaps he’d just listen a while longer.

He’d never admit it to anyone but the music was somehow soothing to his frayed nerves. When he closed his eyes and let the notes just wash over him, the images of Europe and the horrors he’d seen faded somewhat.

They were always slow tunes, nothing too strenuous or fast-paced. Sometimes they sounded old-fashioned, traditional melodies from another time, nothing like the songs he heard on the radio. Jensen liked to think they reflected the dark-haired guy’s personality. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Drawing in a long breath, Jake let the smoke rest in his mouth for a moment before leaning back and blowing wavering rings at the ceiling. As usual, the gentle music was loosening the knots in his shoulders and making him more mellow than he’d been all day.

It was a different tune tonight, a tiny bit more energetic than usual. Jensen knew nothing about playing a guitar but it sounded complicated, as though there was lots of fiddly finger work involved. Smiling to himself, he slid further down on the couch and rested his head on the sagging backrest. The cigarette glowed more brightly as dusk crept slowly into the room.

With his eyes closed, Jensen breathed out and drifted on thoughts of smoky bars and heat-ridden summers in old Mexico, listening to that hypnotic guitar for days on end. Maybe in another life he might have been there and done that but in reality, Hitler had stolen his youth and replaced it with bone-deep weariness. If he went to Mexico now, his cynical side told him, he wouldn’t find another guitar as sweet as the one next door. Probably wouldn’t find a guitar player quite as enigmatic, either.

The same little combination of notes seemed to be repeated a few times, the chorus maybe? For some reason the whole tune seemed familiar, where had he heard it before?

Stubbing out the cigarette and too lazy to light another, he breathed quietly and just listened. Did the guy know he had an audience every night? Did he care?

Those same few notes were repeated again and Jensen remembered where he’d heard the tune before. It had been on the radio a year or two ago, some Cuban thing, what was it called? The words, ‘Quizas, Quizas, Quizas’, rose to mind. Yeah, that was it, that was the title. ‘Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.’

Jensen smiled, was the guy messing with him or was it just a tune he happened to like playing? He shrugged, what did it matter? It was slow and seductive and was effectively melting away all the tension in his shoulders.

The notes died away, leaving only the sounds of L.A. behind them. For a moment Jensen hoped another song would follow but no, there was nothing. Shaking his head ruefully, he pushed himself back up to sit properly on the couch and reached for his book again.

Maybe tomorrow he’d ‘accidentally’ run into the dark-haired guy in the hallway. Perhaps he could drop some off-hand comment about how the guitar echoed through the thin walls between their little worlds. Maybe if he was brave he could tell the guy how much he enjoyed listening.

Or he could just wait for tomorrow night and listen again, alone. As melancholy as it sounded, it wasn’t such an awful prospect. He smiled again and stretched, then really applied himself to his book. Tomorrow would come soon enough.


End file.
